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DR. BEECHER'S 



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1827. 



Ct)e 90emotB of out JFatfteris. 



SERMON 



DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, 



TTVENTY-SECOIVD OF DECEMBER, 



1827. 



BY LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. 



i 



Boston : 

T. R. MARVIN, PRINTER, 32, CONGRESS STREET. 



1828. 



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DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS to wit : 

District Clerk's Office. 

Be it remembered, that on the twenty fourth day of January, A. D. 1828, in 
the fifty second Year of tlie Independence of the United States of America, 
Theophilus R. Marvin, of the said District, has deposited in this Office the 
Title of a Book, the Right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the Words 
following, to wit : 

The Memory of our Fathers. A Sermon delivered at Plymouth, on the twenty- 
second of December, 1827. Ry Lyman Beecher, D. D. 

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled " An 
Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and 
books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein men- 
tioned :" and also to an Act entitled " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 
An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts 
and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein men- 
tioned ; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and 
etching historical and other prints." 

Tivn W TIAVTS! { Clerk of tli£ District 
Ji-su. w. 1JAV1&, ^ of Massachusetts. 




Plvmouth, Dec. 25, 1827. 

Rei\ and dear Sir, — At a meeting of the Third Church in this place, on the last 
evening, — It was 

" Unanimously Resolved, 

" Thai our Pastor be requested to thank the Rev. Dr. Beecher, in the name 
of this Church, for the Discourse delivered at their request, on the anniversary of the 
22d December, in commemoration of the Landing of the Fathers ; and to request a 
copy of the Discourse for the press." 

Tn communicating the above extract from the minutes of the Church, permit me 
to add, — we feel assured that the Discourse is well calculated to be of extensive utility 
to the cause of true patriotism and Christianity ; and therefore hope that you will not 
hesitate to gratify our request. 

With great respect and consideration. 

Yours, in the Gospel of Christ, 

FREDERICK FREEMAN, 

Pastor of 3d Ch. Plymouth. 
Rev. Dr. Beecher. 



This Discourse was first delivered before the Legislature of Connecticut, 
and printed at their request. It was re-written and delivered at the Anniversary 
of the Landing of the Pilgrims, as the only tribute which at that time the writer 
could pay to the Memory of our Fathers. This departure from the ordinar}- 
course, was known and approved by the Committee who made the application, 
and was the more readily acquiesced in by the writer, as the Discourse contains 
a discussion of just those topics which he regarded as most appropriate, and 
which he preferred to have associated with that most interesting anniversary. 



SERMON. 



.ojo. 



Revelation, xxi. 5. 

AND HE THAT SAT UPON THE THRONE SAID, BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL 
THINGS NEW. 

The history of the world is the history of hu- 
man nature in ruins. No state of society, which 
corresponds with the capacity of enjoyment possessed 
by man, or with his conceptions and desires, has 
been permanent and universal. Small portions only 
of the human family have, at the same time, enjoyed 
a state of society in any considerable degree desi- 
rable; while much the greatest part of mankind have, 
in all ages, endured the evils of barbarism and des- 
potism. 

It is equally manifest, that this unhappy condition 
of our race has not been the result of physical ne- 
cessity, but of moral causes. The earth is as capa- 
ble of sustaining a happy, as a miserable population ; 
and it is the perversion of her resources and of the 
human faculties, which has made the misery of man 
so great. The human intellect has given proof of 

vigor and ingenuity sufficient to bless the world ; 

2 



and powerful efforts have been made in every age, 
by afflicted humanity, to surmount this downward 
bias, and rise to permanent enjoyment. Egypt, in 
her monumental ruins, affords evidence of a high 
state of the arts. In Greece, a vigorous intellect 
and favoring clime thrust up from the dead level 
around her, a state of society comparatively culti- 
vated and happy ; but the sun of her prosperity 
blazed upon surrounding darkness, to set in a night 
of ages. Rome fought her way to dominion and 
civilization, and furnished specimens of mental vigor 
and finished culture ; but the superstructure of her 
greatness was reared by the plunder of a devastated 
world. Commerce, which gave to cities a tempo- 
rary eminence, elevated but a little the moral condi- 
tion of the multitude ; and science, which was re- 
stored to modern Europe at the Reformation, and 
commerce and the arts, which have followed in her 
train, have not, to this day, disenthralled the nations. 
From these experiments so long and so hopelessly 
made, it appears, that, in the conflict between the 
heart and the intellect of man, victory has always 
declared on the side of the heart ; which has led 
many to conclude, that the condition of man, in re- 
spect to any universal abiding melioration, is hope- 
less. The text throws light upon this dark destiny 
of our race. It is a voice from heaven announcing 
the approach of help from above. " He that sitteth 
upon the throne saith, behold I make all things 
new." 



The renovation here announced, is a moral reno- 
vation vvliich shall change the character and condi- 
tion of men. It will not be partial in its influence, 
like the sun shining through clouds on favored spots ; 
but co-extensive with the ruin. Nor shall its re- 
sults be national glory which gilds only the palace, 
and cheers only the dwellings of the noble. It shall 
bring down the mountains, and exalt the valleys ; 
it shall send liberty and equality to all the dwellings 
of men. Nor shall it stop at the fire-side, or ex- 
haust its blessings in temporal mercies ; it shall 
enter the hidden man of the heart, and there destroy 
the power w hich has blasted human hopes, and baf- 
fled human eflbrts. Nor will the change be tran- 
sient ; it is the last dispensation of heaven for the 
relief of this miserable world, and shall bring glory 
to God in the highest, and upon earth, peace, and 
good will to men. 

Many have doubted whether such a renovation of 
the world wilj ever be accomplished ; but, He that 
sat upon the throne, said, ' it is done ;' — i. e. it is as 
certain as if it had come to pass. 

I shall submit to your consideration, at this time, 
some of the reasons which justify the hope, that this 
nation has been raised up by Providence to exert 
an efficient instrumentality in this work of moral 
renovation. 

I observe then, that, for the accomplishment of 
this renovation, great changes are required in the 
civil and religious condition of nations. 



8 

1. The monopoly of the soil must be abolished. 
Hitherto the majority of mankind who have tilled 
the earth, have been slaves or tenants. The soil 
has been owned by kings, and military chieftains, 
and nobles, and by them rented to landlords, and, 
by these, to still smaller dealers, and by these again, 
it has been divided and subdivided, until the majori- 
ty, who paid the rent, have sustained in the sweat 
of their brow, not only their own families, but three 
or four orders of society above them ; while they 
themselves have been crushed beneath the weight, 
and have lived on the borders of starvation ; the 
sickness of a week, and often of a single day, ren- 
dering them paupers. 

This same monopoly of the soil has sent another 
large class of the community into manufacturing 
establishments, to wear out their days in ignorance 
and hopeless poverty ; and another to the camp and 
navy, where honor and wealth await the few, and 
ignorance, and an early grave, the many. 

The consequence of excluding such numbers from 
the possession and healthful cultivation of the soil, 
has been ignorance, improvidence, reckless indiffe- 
rence, turbulence, and crime. Tortured by their op- 
pressions, and unrestrained by moral principle, they 
have been prepared for desperate deeds. Such a 
state of society cannot be made happy : the evil is 
radical, and can only be remedied by giving a new 
direction to the physical, moral, and intellectual ener- 
gies of men. We might as well band with iron the 



trees of the forest, and expect their expansion ; or 
throw upon them in stinted measure, the light and 
the rain of heaven, and expect their luxuriant growth, 
as to cramp the human mind by unequal institutions, 
and expect the developement of its resources, in a 
happy state of society. Room for action must be 
afforded, and light must be poured upon the under- 
standing, and motive pressed upon the heart. Man 
must be unshackled and stimulated. But to accom- 
plish this, the earth must he owned by those who till 
it. This will give action to industry, vigor to the 
body, and tone to the mind ; and, by the attendant 
blessing of heaven, religion to the heart. From 
agriculture stimulated by personal rights, will result 
commerce, science, arts, liberty, and independence. 

The attraction of gravity is the great principle of 
motion in the material world ; and the possession of 
the earth in fee simple by the cultivator, is the great 
principle of action in the moral world. Nearly all 
the political evils which have afflicted mankind, have 
resulted from the unrighteous monopoly of the earth ; 
and the predicted renovation can never be accom- 
plished, until, to some extent, this monopoly has 
passed away, and the earth is extensively tilled by 
the independent owners of the soil. 

2. To effect the moral renovation of the world, a 
change is required in the prevailing forms of gov- 
ernment. 

The monopoly of power must be superseded by 
the suffrages of freemen. While the great body of 



10 

the people are excluded from all voice and influence 
in legislation, it is impossible to constitute a state of 
society such as the faculties of man allow, and the 
word of God predicts. While the few govern with- 
out responsibility, they will seek their own elevation 
and depress the multitude. To elevate society, and 
bring out the human energies in a well ordered state 
of things, the mass of mankind must be enlightened 
and qualified for self government, and must yield 
obedience to delegated power. 

3. Before the moral renovation of the world can 
be achieved, the rights of conscience must, also, 
be restored to man. 

Few of the millions that have peopled the earth 
have been qualified by knoAvledge, or permitted by 
the governments under which they lived, to read the 
Bible and judge for themselves. The nominal re- 
ligions of this world have been supported by govern- 
ments, who, of course, have prescribed the creed, 
and modelled the worship, and controlled the priest- 
hood. From such a state of things, what better 
results could be expected, than that ambitious men 
should be exalted to the sacred office, while religion 
itself was despised and persecuted ? Governments 
and ecclesiastics, then, must cease to dictate what 
men shall believe, and in what manner they shall 
worship God. The Church must be emancipated 
from worldly dominion, and enjoy that liberty 
wherewith Jesus Christ has made her free. 

Is it to be expected that kingly governments shall 



11 

cease, and the republican form become universal ? 
I shall not stop now to discuss this question. I 
would only su2:gest the inquiry, whether monarchical 
governments can be sustained without a nobility 
and an established religion ; and whether these privi- 
leged orders can exist w^ithout that monopoly of the 
soil, and of political influence, and of the rights of 
conscience, which are destructive to a religious and 
happy state of society. That governments will 
change their name, or all their ancient forms, I will 
not say. But that they will, under some form, be- 
come so far popular iii their spirit, as that the politi- 
cal power shall be in the hands of the people, cannot 
be doubted. 

It has been contended, that Christianity cannot 
exist in this world without the aid of religious es- 
tablishments. But, with more truth it might be 
said, that, from the beginning to this day, it has ex- 
isted in spite of them. It took possession of the 
Roman Empire in the face of a formidable establish- 
ment of false religion, and has survived the deadly 
embrace of establishments nominally christian, and 
now, bursting from their alliance, finds in them the 
most bitter opposition to evangelical doctrine and 
vital godliness. 

To accomplish these changes in the civil and 
religious condition of the world, revolutions and 
convulsions are doubtless indispensable. The usur- 
pation of the soil will not be relinquished spon- 
taneously, nor the chains knocked off from the body 



12 

and the mind of man, by the hands which for ages 
have been employed to rivet them. He that sitteth 
upon the throne must overturn and overturn, before 
his rights and the rights of man will be restored. 
Revolutions of course are predicted, such as shall 
veil the sun, and turn the moon into blood, and 
shake the earth with the violence of nation dashing 
against nation ; — until every despotic government 
shall be thrown down, and chaos resume its pristine 
reign ; until the spirit of God shall move again upon 
the face of the deep, and bring out a new creation. 
The day of vengeance is no doubt begun, and will 
no doubt continue, until He that sitteth upon the 
throne shall have made all things new. 

But to the perfection of this work a great exam- 
ple is required, of which the world may take know- 
ledge ; and which shall inspire hope, and rouse and 
concentrate the energies of man. But where should 
such an experiment be made ? Africa required for 
herself the commiseration of the world, and in Eu- 
rope and Asia, it would have required ages to dig 
up the foundations of despotism, and remove the 
rubbish, to prepare the way for such a state of soci- 
ety as we have described : this too must have been 
done in opposition to proscription and organized 
resistance. There was also such a mass of unin- 
formed mind, accustomed to crouch under burdens, 
and so much was required to prepare it for civil 
liberty, that little hope remained that the old world, 
undirected, and unstimulated by example, would 



13 

ever disenthral itself. Some nation, itself free, was 
needed, to blow the trumpet and hold up the light. 
But in England, though she enjoyed to some extent 
the blessings of civil liberty, there was so great a 
monopoly of the soil and of power, and so much 
overturning feared and needed, that it was only in 
stinted measures, and with circumspect policy, that 
she could deal out her sympathy and hold up her 
light. A more vigorous ally to liberty was needed, 
which should with a fearless heart and powerful 
hand, push on the work. But where could such a 
nation be found ? It must be created, for it had no 
existence upon the earth. Look now at the history 
of our Fathers and behold what God hath wrought. 
They were such a race of men as never before laid 
the foundations of an empire ; athletic, intelligent 
and pious. But how should this portion of a na- 
tion's population be uprooted and driven into exile ? 
They were not permitted to remain at home. In 
that age of darkness, and land of bondage, they had 
formed some just conceptions of civil and religious 
liberty ; and would fain have modified the civil gov- 
ernment and the church of God according to the 
Gospel. But the reformation from popery, superin- 
tended by government, and regulated by policy, 
stopped short of what the pious expected and de- 
sired. The Puritans could not in all things conform, 
and were not permitted to dissent ; and thus they 
were driven into exile, and compelled to lay the 
foundations of a new empire. And now, behold their 
3 



14 

institutions ; such as the world needs, and, attended 
as they have been by the power of God, able to en- 
lighten and renovate the world. They recognize 
the equal rights of man — they give the soil to the 
cultivator, and self government and the rights of 
conscience to the people. They enlighten the intel- 
lect, and form the conscience, and bring the entire 
influence of the divine government to bear upon the 
heart. It was the great object of our Fathers to 
govern men by the fear of the Lord ; to exhibit the 
precepts, apply the motives, and realize the disposi- 
tions, which the Avord of God inculcates and his 
Spirit inspires ; to imbue families, and schools, and 
towns, and states, with the wisdom from above. 
They had no projects of human device — no theories 
of untried efficacy. They hung all their hopes of 
civil and religious prosperity upon the word of God, 
and the efficacy of his Spirit. Nor was theirs the 
presumptuous hope of grace without works. It was 
by training men for self government, that they ex- 
pected to make free men ; and by becoming fellow 
workers with God, that they expected his aid in 
forming christians ; while, by intellectual culture, 
and moral influence, and divine power, they pre- 
pared men to enjoy and perpetuate civil liberty. 

The law, with sleepless vigilance, watched over 
the family, the church, and the state ; and a vigo- 
rous and united public opinion rendered its execution 
certain and efficacious. Every family was required 
to possess a Bible, every district a school, and 



15 

every town a pastor. The law protected the sab- 
bath, and sustained tlic public worship of God, and 
punished immorality ; and with mild but effectual 
energy, ruled over all. The great excellence of 
these institutions is, that they are practical and 
powerful ; the people are not free in name and 
form merely, but in deed and in truth. Were all 
these forms blotted out this day, the people would 
be free, and other forms of civil freedom would 
arise. The governments are free governments from 
the foundation to the top stone, and of such practi- 
cal efficacy as to make free men. The family, em- 
bodying instruction and government, was itself an 
embryo empire. In the school district, the people 
were called upon to exercise their own discretion 
and rights, and in the ecclesiastical society, to rear 
their place of w orship, elect their pastor and provide 
for his support ; and all under the protection and 
guidance of law. The towns, in their popular as- 
semblies, discussed their local interests and admin- 
istered their ow^n concerns. In these, originated 
the legislature, and from the legislature emanated the 
courts of justice. In the States, as they are now 
organized in our nation, all which is local and pe- 
culiar, is superintended with a minuteness and effi- 
cacy, which no consolidated government could 
possibly accomplish. The people have only to 
ascertain from experience what their convenience 
or interest demands, and their Avish becomes a law ; 
and still, in the national government, there is all 



16 

the comprehension of plan, and power of resource, 
and unity of action, which are required for the 
highest degree of national energy and prosperity. 

It has been doubted, whether a republic so exten- 
sive as ours, can be held together and efficiently 
governed. But where there is this intellectual and 
moral influence, and the habitual exercise of civil and 
religious liberty from the family upward ; we see not 
why a republic may not be extended indefinitely, 
and still be the strongest, and most effective govern- 
ment in the world. 

The history of our nation is indicative of some 
great design to be accomplished by it. It is a 
history of perils and deliverances, and of strength 
ordained out of weakness. The wars with the 
savage tribes, and with the French, and at last with 
the English, protracted expense, and toil, and blood, 
through a period of one hundred and fifty years. 
No nation, out of such weakness, ever became so 
strong ; or was guided through such perils to such 
safety. " If it had not been the Lord who was on 
our side, now may Israel say ; if it had not been 
the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up 
against us : then they had swallowed us up quick, 
when their wrath was kindled against us : then the 
waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone 
over our soul : then the proud waters had gone over 
our soul." These deliverances, the enemy beheld 
with wonder, and our Fathers with thanksgiving 
and praise. But, in the whole history of the world, 



17 

God has not been accustomed to grant signal inter- 
positions, without ends of corresponding magnitude 
to be answered bj them. Indeed, if it had been 
the design of heaven to establish a powerful nation, 
in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, 
Avherc all the energies of man might find scope and 
excitement, on purpose to show the world by ex- 
periment, of what man is capable ; and to shed light 
on the darkness which should awake the slumbering 
eye, and rouse the torpid mind, and nerve the 
palsied arm of millions ; where could such an ex- 
periment have been made but in this country, and 
by whom so auspiciously as by our Fathers, and by 
what means so well adapted to that end, as by their 
institutions ? The course which is now adopted 
by christians of all denominations, to support and 
extend, at home and abroad, religious and moral 
influence ; would seem to indicate the purpose of 
God to render this nation, extensively, the almoners 
of his mercy to this world. 

For two hundred years, the religious institutions 
of our land were secured by law. But as our 
numbers increased, and liberty of conscience resulted 
in many denominations of christians, it became im- 
possible to secure by law the universal application 
of religious and moral influence. And yet, without 
this mighty energy the whole system must fail ; for 
physical power, without religious and moral influ- 
ence, will not avail to sustain the institutions of civil 
liberty. We might as well rely on the harvests 



18 

which our Fathers reared for bread, as to rely on the 
external forms of liberty which they established, 
without the application of that vital energy, by 
which the body politic was animated and moved. 
But, at the very time when the civil law had become 
impotent for the support of religion and the preven- 
tion of immoralities, God began to pour out his 
Spirit upon the churches ; and voluntary associations 
of christians were raised up to apply and extend that 
influence, which the law could no longer apply. 
And now we are blessed with societies to aid in the 
support of the Gospel at home, to extend it to the 
new settlements, and through the earth. We have 
Bible societies, and Tract societies, and associa- 
tions of individuals, who make it their business to 
see that every family has a Bible, and every church 
a pastor, and every child a catechism. And to these 
have succeeded Education societies, that our nation 
may not outgrow the means of religious instruction. 
And while these means of moral culture are sup- 
plied, this great nation from her eminence, begins to 
look abroad with compassion upon a world sitting 
in darkness ; and to put forth her mighty arm to dis- 
enthral the nations, and elevate the family of man. 
Let it be remembered also, that the means now 
relied on, are precisely those which our Fathers ap- 
plied, and which have secured our prosperity. And 
when we contemplate the unexampled resources of 
this country in men, soil, climate, seacoast, rivers, 
lakes, canals, agriculture, commerce, arts and 



19 

wealth, and all in connexion with the influence of 
republican and religious institutions ; is it too much 
to be hoped that God will accept our powerful in- 
strumentality, and make it effectual for the renova- 
tion of the world ? 

The revivals of religion which prevail in our land 
among christians of all denominations, furnish cheer- 
ing evidence of the presence of evangelical doctrine, 
and of the power of that Spirit by which the truth 
is to be made efficacious in the salvation of man- 
kind. These revivals are distinguished by their 
continuance through a period of thirty years ; by 
their extent, pervading the nation ; by their increas- 
ing frequency in the same places ; by their rapidity 
and power, often changing, in a few weeks, the char- 
acter of towns and cities, and even of large districts 
of country. An earnest of that glorious time when 
a nation shall be born in a day, they purify our lit- 
erary institutions, and multiply pastors and mission- 
aries to cheer our own land, and enlighten distant 
nations. They are without a parallel in the history 
of the world and are constituting an era of moral 
power entirely new. Already the churches look 
chiefly to them for their members and pastors, and 
for that power upon public opinion, which retards 
declension, and gives energy to law and voluntary 
support to religious institutions. 

These revivals then, falling in with all these an- 
tecedent indications, seem to declare the purpose of 



20 

God to employ this nation in the glorious work of 
renovating the earth. 

If we look at our missionaries abroad, and wit- 
ness the smiles of heaven upon their efforts, our 
confidence, that it is the purpose of God to render 
our nation a blessing to the world, will be increased. 
In talents, and piety, and learning, and doctrine, 
and civil policy, they are the legitimate descendants 
of the Puritans. Every where they command high 
respect, and have been distinguished by their judi- 
cious and successful efforts. In Ceylon, and Hawaii, 
and among the natives of this country, they are fast 
supplanting idolatry by christian institutions. Re- 
vivals of religion cheer and bless them ; and churches, 
and all the elements of christian civilization are 
multiplying around them. 

Let this nation go on, then, and multiply its mil- 
lions and its resources, and bring the whole under the 
influence of our civil and religious institutions, and 
with the energies of its concentrated benevolence 
send out evangelical instruction ; and who can cal- 
culate what our blessed instrumentality shall have 
accomplished, when He who sitteth upon the throne 
shall have made all things new. 

If Swartz, and Buchanan, and Vanderkemp, and 
Carey, and Martyn, and Brainerd, could, each alone, 
accomplish so much ; what may not be expected 
from the energies of such a nation as this ? Fifty 
such men as Paul the Apostle, unaided by the re- 
sources of systematic benevolence, might evangelize 



21 

the world. What then may not be accomplished by 
a nation of freemen, destined in little more than half 
a century to number its fifty millions ? 

If we consider also our friendly relations with the 
South American States, and the close imitation they 
are disposed to make of our civil and literary insti- 
tutions, who can doubt that the spark which our 
Forefathers struck will yet enlighten this entire con- 
tinent ? But when the light of such a hemisphere 
shall go up to heaven, it will throw its beams beyond 
the waves — it will shine into the darkness there, 
and be comprehended ; it will awaken desire, and 
hope, and effort, and produce revolutions and over- 
turnings, until the world is free. 

From our revolutionary struggle, proceeded the 
revolution in France, and all which has followed in 
Naples, Portugal, Spain, and Greece ; and though 
the bolt of every chain has been again driven, they 
can no more hold the heaving mass, than the chains 
of Xerxes could hold the Hellespont vexed with 
storms. Floods have been poured upon the rising 
flame, but they can no more extinguish it than they 
can extinguish the fires of iEtna. Still it burns, 
and still the mountain heaves and murmurs ; and 
soon it will explode with voices, and thunderings, 
and great earthquakes. Then will the trumpet 
of jubilee sound, and earth's debased millions will 
leap from the dust, and shake off their chains, and 
cry, " Hosanna to the Son of David." 
4 



22 

Before we conclude this discourse, let us attend 
to some of the duties to which we are called by our 
high providential destiny. 

And most evidently we are called upon 
1 . To cherish with high veneration and grateful 
recollections the memory of our Fathers. Both the 
ties of nature, and the dictates of policy demand this. 
And surely no nation ever had less occasion to be 
ashamed of its ancestry, or more occasion for gratu- 
lation in that respect ; for while most nations trace 
their origin to barbarians, the foundations of our 
nation were laid by civilized men — by cliristians. 
Many of them were men of distinguished families, 
of powerful talents, of great learning, of pre-eminent 
wisdom, of decision of character, and of most inflex- 
ible integrity. And yet, not unfrequently, they have 
been treated as if they had no virtues ; while their 
sins and follies have been sedulously immortalized 
in satirical anecdote. The influence of such treat- 
ment of the Fathers is too manifest. It creates and 
lets loose upon their invaluable institutions the Van- 
dal spirit of innovation and overthrow ; for after the 
memory of our Fathers shall have been rendered 
contemptible, who will appreciate and sustain their 
institutions ? ' The Memory of our Fathers,' 
should be the watchword of liberty throughout the 
land ; — for, imperfect as they were, the world before, 
had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, 
behold their like again. Such models of moral ex- 
cellence, such apostles of civil and religious liberty, 



23 

such shades of the iUustrious dead, looking down 
upon their descendants with approbation or reproof, 
according as they follow or depart from the good 
way, constitute a censorship inferior only to the 
eye of God ; — and to ridicule them is national 
suicide. 

The doctrines of our Fathers have been represent- 
ed as gloomy, superstitious, Severe, irrational, and 
of a licentious tendency. But when other systems 
shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality 
as pure, a patriotism as disinterested, and a state of 
society as happy, as have prevailed where their doc- 
trines have been most prevalent ; it may be in season 
to seek an answer to this objection. The same 
doctrines have been charged with inspiring a spirit 
of dogmatism and religious domination. But in all 
the struggles of man with despotic power for civil 
liberty, the doctrines of our Fathers have been 
found, usually, if not always, on the side of liberty, 
as their opposite have been usually found in the 
ranks of arbitrary power. 

The persecutions instituted by our Fathers, have 
been the occasion of ceaseless obloquy upon their fair 
fame. And truly it was a fault of no ordinary mag- 
nitude that, sometimes, they did persecute. But 
let him, whose ancestors were not ten times more 
guilty, cast the first stone, and the ashes of our 
Fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the 
fault of the age, and it will be easy to show, that no 
class of men had at that time approximated so nearly 



24 

tojust apprehensions of religious liberty; and that it is 
to them tliat the world is now indebted for the more 
just and definite views which prevail. More ex- 
clamation and invective has been called forth by the 
few instances of persecution by the Fathers of New 
England, than by all the fires which lighted the 
realm of Old England for centuries, and drove into 
exile, thousands of her most valuable subjects. 

The superstition and bigotry of our Fathers are 
themes, on which some of their descendants, them- 
selves far enough from superstition, if not from 
bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But when we 
look abroad, and behold the condition of the world 
compared with the condition of New England, we 
may justly exclaim, ' Would to God that the ances- 
tors of all the nations had been not only almost, but 
altogether such bigots as our Fathers were !' 

Their strictness in the family, and in church and 
state, has been complained of as too rigid. But 
they were laying the foundations of a nation, and 
applying a moral power, whose impulse should ex- 
tend through ages ; and who that beholds the rapid 
and appalling moral relaxation of the present day, 
can believe that they put the system in motion with 
too much rigor ? In proportion as their discipline 
had been less strict, our present condition had been 
more alarming, and our future prospects more des- 
perate. 

Our Fathers have been ridiculed as an uncouth 
and uncourtly generation. And it must be ad- 



mitted, that they were not as expert in the graces 
of dress, and the etiquette of the drawing room, as 
some of their descendants. Bufneither could these 
have felled the trees, nor guided the plough, nor 
spread the sail which they did ; nor braved the dan- 
gers of Indian warfare, nor displayed the wisdom in 
counsel which our Fathers displayed. And, had 
none stepped upon the Plymouth rock but such 
effeminate critics as these, the poor natives never 
would have mourned their wilderness lost, but would 
have brushed them from the land, as they would 
brush the puny insect from their face ; the Pequods 
would have slept in safety that night which was 
their last, and no intrepid Mason had hung upon 
their rear, and driven into exile the panic-struck 
fugitives. 

2. We are called upon to cherish and extend our 
religious institutions. 

Religion was the power on which our Fathers 
relied — the power which has made us what we are, 
and which must guarantee the perpetuity of our 
blessings. Every other influence has been tried and 
has failed, while this has been tried with ample 
promise of success. The application of religious 
and moral influence is, therefore, the great duty to 
which, as a nation, we are called. On this influence 
depends our rise or fall — our glorious immortality or 
our hasty dissolution. Every thing but this, may be 
safely left to the operation of existing causes. Am- 
bition will secure the interests of education and sci- 



26 

ence ; the love of gold will push agriculture and 
commerce and arts ; and the pride of liberty will 
arm the nation, and render it invincible. All these 
things, the nations who have preceded us have been 
able to do. But there was a sickness of the heart 
which they could neither endure nor heal ; — and 
with this same disease this nation is sick, and intel- 
lectual culture, and civil liberty, and national wealth 
will not heal it. There is but one remedy ; and 
that is, the preaching of the Gospel, with the Holy 
Ghost sent down from on high. But to render the 
Gospel effectual, the religious education of the fam- 
ily, and the moral culture of our schools and colleges 
must be secured ; and the Sabbath must be rescued 
from profanation. The Sabbath is the great organ 
of the divine administration — the only means pro- 
vided by God to give ubiquity and power to his 
moral government. The intellectual culture of a 
nation requires schools and literary institutions ; and 
that the subjects of instruction shall be brought 
under their influence. Let the fascinations of plea- 
sure, or the demands of labor withdraw the children 
and youth from the power of intellectual culture, 
and ignorance will ensue ; in like manner, let the 
stream of pleasure and of worldly cares bear away 
the population of the land from the house of God, and 
from the duties of devotion on the Sabbath ; and igno- 
rance of God and of his laws will with equal cer- 
tainty ensue ; irreligion will prevail, and immorality 
and dissoluteness, to an extent utterly inconsistent 



27 

with the permanence of republican institutions. 
Europe can never enjoy civil liberty until she shall 
do more homage to the Sabbath of God ; and we 
shall enjoy it but a short space after we have ceased 
to render to God his right in that sacred day : for, 
all the millions who violate the Sabbath, will draw 
themselves from the moral power of the divine gov- 
ernment, deprive their families of a religious educa- 
tion, and abandon them to the power of their evil 
hearts and their own bad example. In the mean 
time, the secular interests of men are so indisso- 
lubly connected, that the stream of business, put 
in motion by the wicked on the Sabbath day, 
not only pains the eye of the virtuous, but, as 
it deepens, and roars, and rolls onward its turbid 
waters, it draws into itself by the associations of 
business, a large, and still larger portion of the com- 
munity ; until it spreads unresisted over the land, 
obliterates the government of God, and substitutes 
covetousness and pleasure and dissoluteness, instead 
of godliness and the morality of the Gospel. 

The present, undoubtedly, is the generation which 
is to decide the fate of this great empire, by deciding 
whether the Sabbath of God shall be preserved or 
blotted out ; for the temptations of the seaboard and 
of canals are immense, and are increasing most fear- 
fully ; and, unless public sentiment and law shall 
make a stand soon, we may as well attempt to stop 
the rolling of the ocean, or the current of our mighty 
rivers. 



28 

The universal extension of our religious insti- 
tutions, is the only means of reconciling our 
unparalleled prosperity with national purity and 
immortality. Without the preserving power of reli- 
gious and moral influence, our rapid increase in 
wealth will be the occasion of our swift destruction. 
The rank vegetation of unsanctified enterprise, thrown 
into one vast reservoir of putrefaction, will send up 
over the land desolation and death. No nation will 
be so short lived as ours, unless we can balance the 
temptations of our prosperity by moral power. Our 
sun has moved onward from his morning to his 
meridian, with a rapidity and glory which has 
amazed the world. But, unless we can extend the 
power of religious institutions through the land, 
dark clouds will soon obscure his glory, and his 
descent to a night of ages will be more rapid than 
his rising. 

When we were colonies, or unallied states, the law 
could make provision for the creation and application 
of moral power. The law could compel men to 
desist from secular employments and vain amuse- 
ments on the Sabbath. The law could compel men 
to support the Gospel, and attend the public worship 
of God — and civil officers could see to it, that every 
town should in due time settle a minister, and that 
every family should possess a Bible and a catechism. 
But these means of moral influence the law can no 
longer apply ; and there is no substitute but the 
voluntary energies of the nation itself, exerted by 



29 

associations for charitable contributions and efforts, 
patronized hy all denominations of christians, and 
by all classes of the community who love their 
country. We may boast of our civil and religious 
liberty, but they are the fruit of other men's labors 
into which we have entered ; and the effect of insti- 
tutions, whose impulse has been felt long after the 
hands that reared them have mouldered in the grave. 
This impulse, too, is fast failing, and becoming 
yearly, more and more disproportioned to the mass 
that is to be moved by it. Our religious insti- 
tutions must bo invigorated, or we are undone. 
They must move onward with our flowing emi- 
gration to the Mississippi — must pass the Rocky 
Mountains, and pour their waters of life into the 
ocean beyond ; and from the north to the south, 
they must bear salvation on their waves. In this 
way the nation can save itself : but unless it can be 
roused to this mighty w^ork, it will, like the man 
among the tombs, become exceeding fierce, and turn 
upon itself its infuriated energies, and pour out its 
own life blood by self-inflicted wounds.* 

* In many of the discourses and orations which commemorate the deeds 
of our Fathers, their character, as the apostles of civil liberty, is especially 
eulogised ; while their doctrines, their piety, their church order, and the 
other peculiarities of their religious institutions, are passed off with cold 
commendations, or perhaps palliated and excused as the defects of the age. 
But no historical fact is more completely established, than that religion was 
the chief end for which our Fathers sought this wilderness, and that their 
peculiar doctrines and views of experimental religion and church order were 
dearer to them than life ; and that it is these, which, for more than one 
hundred and fifty years, applied the religious and moral influence under 
which New England was formed, and which has made her what she is. Let 
5 



30 

3. We are called upon to give a quickened, and 
extended impulse to our charitable institutions. 

These are the providential substitutes fo those le- 
gal provisions of our Fathers, which are now inap- 
plicable by change of circumstances. In these the 
nation must enrol itself spontaneously, and the spirit 
of the Puritans be revived, for the preservation of 
their institutions. And now is the time. With 
our growing prosperity, the fascinations of pleasure 
increase, and the means and temptations to volup- 
tuousness. Now, unless the salt of the earth con- 
tained in christian institutions can be diffused 
through the land, the mass will putrify. The tide 
of business and pleasure, bursting from our cities, 
rolling on our seacoast, and flowing in our canals, 
will soon sweep away the Sabbath, unless a vigorous 
public sentiment, by the preaching of the Gospel, 

the children of the Pilgrims never forget this ; and let the eulogists of their 
patriotism cease to spread before our eyes such a glitter of style and elo- 
quence, as shall place their civil exploits in the fore-ground, and throw their 
doctrines, and church order, and eminent piety into the back-ground. The 
religious and moral causes which have blessed New England, and are now 
rolling the tide of salvation to the West, can never be concealed ; and can, 
never be, successfully, misrepresented. As well may the Newtonian philoso- 
phy be concealed, as the system of our Fathers — ^it is out, and known, and 
read of all men. We are the more called upon to regard this subject with 
deep interest, from the fact, that the attempt is now openly made to destroy 
the religious and moral energy of the churches which our Fathers planted, 
by perverting their doctrines, changing the qualitications for membership, 
and taking from them their immemorial and sacred rights in the election of 
their own pastors, in the enjoyment of which, they have exerted so powerful 
and salutary an influence, and in the destruction of which, their moral power 
must fail. We have no apprehension that the children of the Pilgrims, when 
the subject shall be fairly understood, will, by adding injustice to ingratitude, 
sanction such innovations. 



31 

and the power of the Spirit, can bo arrayed for 
its preservation. Let the Sabbath schools, then, and 
Bible classes of our land be multiplied ; and h^t so- 
cieties for domestic missions rise in every State and 
district, and collect and pour out the energies of the 
nation for its moral preservation ; while Bibles, and 
pastors, and teachers are multiplied, till the know- 
ledge of the Lord covers the land, and his saving 
health is extended to all the people. 

4. All christian denominations are called upon to 
co-operate for the preservation of religion. 

It is idle to expect, and folly to desire, the amal- 
gamation of all denominations into one. The papal 
effort at universal comprehension has shown, what a 
vast, unstimulated, stagnant uniformity will accom- 
plish ; and God, no doubt, has permitted some va- 
rying winds of opinion to move upon the face of the 
deep, to maintain motion, purity and life. We may 
say, however, that jealousies and ambitious collisions 
between religious denominations should give place 
to christian courtesy, and the magnanimity of an 
hearty co-operation for the glory of God, and the 
salvation of the world. It is in vain to expect, and 
it would be sinful to desire the extinction of any one 
denomination of real christians. There is room for 
all — and work for all ; and there is ample reason 
why each should hail the other as an auxiliary in 
the work of the Lord. Religious principle must 
be applied throughout the nation, and no one deno- 
mination can do it. The work demands the cease- 



3^ 

less action of each in its own peculiar way, and the 
magnanimous co-operation of all, for the preservation 
of the great principles of our common Christianity. 
Nor will such concert of action be in vain. It will 
form, extensively, a public opinion which shall accord 
with the morality of the Gospel — whose sanctions, 
expressed in the votes of virtuous freemen, shall 
elevate to influence and power, men of pure morality, 
and consign the irreligious, immoral, and dissolute, 
to merited contempt : — a law which the wicked can- 
not repeal, and whose penalty they cannot evade. 
All denominations, united, and directing their suffra- 
ges to that end, can check the violation of the Sab- 
bath ; can arrest the contagion of intemperance ; 
can punish duellists in high places, who with shame- 
less notoriety, set at defiance the laws of God and 
their country, bringing upon us the contempt of the 
world, and the just judgments of heaven. 

5. In this great work of national preservation 
and universal good will, our civil rulers are, par- 
ticularly, called upon to co-operate ; not, as once, 
in convoking synods, and approving and recom- 
mending creeds ; and not in coercing by law, at- 
tendance upon public worship, or the support 
of religious institutions. The day is gone by, in 
which such interposition is required, or can avail. 
The God of our Fathers, having given to us a prac- 
tical illustration of the efficacy of religious institu- 
tions, sustained by law during our minority ; — now, 
in our manhood, puts the price into our hands to be 



33 

preserved or abandoned spontaneously on our own 
responsibility. Nor are the church and the state to 
be so identified, as that the qualifications for civil 
office must be the same as for membership in that 
kingdom which is not of this world. Our civil 
rulers owe to God and their country now, the same 
illustrious piety, the same estimation of the doctrines 
of God's Word, the same attendance upon the ordi- 
nances of the Gospel and co-operation for their sup- 
port, and the same strict and pure morality, which 
rendered the civil Fathers of our land so illustrious 
in their character, and so benign in the power of 
their example upon their own and upon other gene- 
rations. The example of men in official stations, is 
among the most powerful moral causes which afflict 
or bless a community. If it be good, it descends 
with cheering power, like the gentle rain upon the 
earth ; but if it be evil, from its " bad eminence," it 
comes down upon the community like the mountain 
torrent, sweeping away landmarks. The righteous 
mourn under their sway, and the wicked creep from 
their hiding places, and walk on every side, setting 
their mouth against the heavens, and their foot upon 
all that is sacred and holy. The time has come, 
when the experiment is to be made, whether the 
world is to be emancipated and rendered happy, or 
whether the whole creation shall groan and travail 
together in pain until the final consummation : and 
the example of the rulers of our nation w\\\ throw 
decisive weights into the scales, for or against the 



34 

world's last hope. If they pour contempt upon the 
Bible, its doctrines and institutions — if they take in 
vain the name of God, or profane wantonly his holy 
day — if they concentrate in the capitol, and spread 
abroad through the land, the infection of their bad 
example ; the whole nation will feel it, and die 
under it, unless the indignant virtue of an insulted 
community shall throw off the body of death, and, 
by a well directed suffrage, call to its aid men of 
talents and of pure morality. 

6. To perpetuate our national prosperity and hold 
up our light to the world, our citizens must banish 
party spirit, and regulate the suffrage of the nation 
with reference to the preservation of its moral 
purity. 

The temporary collisions of local interest and of 
ambition can never be excluded from such a nation 
as this, and are not to be feared. It is those deep- 
rooted and permanent divisions, extending through 
the land, rousing the feelings and arraying the ener- 
gies of one part of the nation in keen collision with 
the other, and perpetuating prejudice and strife from 
generation to generation, which threaten the exis- 
tence of our republican institutions. Through one 
such fiery trial we have passed undestroyed, though 
by no means uninjured ; and no patriot of the pre- 
sent generation would willingly, 1 trust, behold our 
country placed in such jeopardy again. Despotic 
governments may pass in safety through popular 
commotions such as would shake down the pillars 



35 

of a republic. The mobs of England, which, in the 
presence of the military power, are but the gambols 
of a kid within the scope of the lion's paw, would 
be, in this country, as the letting out of waters. 
There is no possibility of freedom in this bad world, 
without so much intelligence and moral principle 
among the people, as shall create an eflicient public 
sentiment in favor of law and good order. But 
party spirit prostrates every thing within the sphere 
of its commotion, Avhich is venerable and sacred. It 
directs the attention of the people from their own 
common interests, to the means of gaining objects to 
which prejudice and passion may direct them ; and 
the attention of the government from the public 
good, to the means of its own perpetuity and ascen- 
dancy. It renders a wise and comprehensive policy 
impossible ; for party spirit has no magnanimity, no 
conscience, no consistency, to withhold it from re- 
sisting as readily what is wise as what is unwise ; 
and its victories are too transient to admit of much 
prospective wisdom. It is eminently hostile to the 
laws which watch over the morals of the nation ; — 
for who will execute them, when partizans on both 
sides fear that they may feel the consequences of 
fidelity at the next election. Too often, from the 
nearly balanced state of parties, the most worthless 
portion of the community actually hold the sway in 
the elections, even in a state of society compara- 
tively virtuous, — occasioning impunity in the viola- 
tion of law, and clothing with political consequence, 



36 

and too often surrounding with adulation, men whom 
our Fathers would have expelled from good society. 
It tends to destroy in society, all distinctions of 
moral character, talent, and learning, as qualifica- 
tions for office ; while it reconciles the people, upon 
the plea of necessity, to such preposterous sacrifices 
of conscience and common sense, as they would 
never consent to, unstimulated by its madness. In- 
deed, in all but the name, it rears beneath the forms 
of freedom, a real and most terrific despotism. For 
every party has a soul, — some master spirit, who, 
without a crown and a sceptre, governs with abso- 
lute sway. He is surrounded by a nobility, each 
of whom is commissioned to govern the public opi- 
nion within his sphere, and bring his retainers to the 
polls, to subserve implicitly the interests of the king 
and of the aristocracy. It needs only to kindle the 
watch-fire, and every clansman is at his post ; and 
argument might as well avail against bullets in the 
day of battle, as in these determined contests of 
parties. There is no remedy for this state of things, 
but that intelligence which qualifies the people to 
understand their rights, interests, and duties ; and 
that calmness of feeling to which the public mind, 
undisturbed by partizan efforts, will not fail to 
come ; and that deep conviction of the importance 
of moral purity, which shall turn the expectations 
of the people from party men and party measures, 
to the application of moral power, by the institu- 
tions of religion, and the interposition of the Holy 
Spirit. 



37 

Multitudes of christians and patriots have long 
since abandoned party politics, and, not knowing 
what to do, have almost abandoned the exercise of 
suflfrage. This is wrong. An enlightened and vir- 
tuous suffrage may, by system and concentration, 
become one of the most powerful means of promo- 
ting national purity and morality ; — as the suffrage 
from which the influence of conscience is with- 
drawn, cannot fail to be disastrous. While then, as 
freemen, we remove one temptation to hypocrisy, 
by dispensing with a profession of religion as a 
qualification for office, and exclude all occasions of 
jealousy, by bestowing our votes without reference 
to christian denomination ; let all christians and all 
patriots exercise their rights as electors, with an 
inflexible regard to moral character ; and let the 
duellist and the sabbath-breaker, and the drunkard, 
and the licentious, find the doors of honor barred, 
and the heights of ambition defended against them 
by hosts of determined freemen, and the moral 
effect will be great. The discrimination by suffrage 
will exert upon the youth of our country a most 
salutary restraint, and upon dissolute and ambitious 
men a powerful reforming influence. Let every 
freeman, then, who would perpetuate the liberty 
and happiness of his country, and transmit to his 
descendants of distant generations the precious 
legacy which our Fathers have sent down to us, 
inquire concerning the candidate for whom he is 

solicited to vote, — is he an enemy to the Bible, or 
6 



38 

to the doctrines and institutions of the Gospel ; — is 
he a duellist, or an intemperate man, or a sabbath- 
breaker, or dissolute, or dishonest ? — and if, in any 
of these respects, he be disqualified, let him with- 
hold his vote, and give it to a better man — and it 
will go far to retrieve the declensions which have 
taken place, and to render righteousness and peace 
the stability of our times. 

And now, what shall we say to these things ? 
Are they the dreams of a fervid imagination, or are 
they the words of truth and soberness ? Will our 
blessings be perpetuated, or shall ours be added to 
the ruined republics that have been ? Are we as- 
sembled to day to bestow funeral honors upon our 
departed glory, or with united counsels and hearts 
to strengthen the things that remain ? Weak indeed 
must be the faith that wavers now, and sinks amid 
waves less terrific, and prospects more cheering, 
than any which our Fathers ever saw. Were it 
dark even as midnight, and did the waves run high, 
and dash loud and angry around us, still our faith 
would not be dismayed : still with our Fathers we 
would believe, " Qui transtulit sustinet ;" and still 
would we rejoice in the annunciation of Him that 
sitteth upon the throne, " Behold I create all things 
new." Our anchor will not fail — our bark will not 
founder ; for the means of preservation will be used, 
and the God of our Fathers will make them ef- 
fectual. The memorv of our Fathers is becoming 



39 

more precious. Their institutions are commanding 
a higher estimation. Deeper convictions are felt of 
the importance of religion ; and more extended and 
vigorous exertions are made to balance the tempta- 
tions of prosperity by moral power. Christians are 
ceasing from their jealousies, and concentrating their 
energies. The nation is moved, and beginning to 
enrol itself in various forms of charitable associa- 
tion, for the extension of religion at home and 
abroad. Philosophers and patriots, statesmen and 
men of wealth, are beginning to feel that it is right- 
eousness only which exaiteth a nation ; and to give 
to the work of moral renovation their arguments, the 
power of their example, and the impulse of their 
charity. And the people, weary of political col- 
lision, are disposed at length to build again those 
institutions which in times of contention, they had 
either neglected or trodden down. Such an array 
of moral influence as is now comprehended in the 
great plan of charitable operations, was never before 
brought to bear upon the nation. It moves onward, 
attended by fervent supplications, and followed by 
glorious and unceasing effusions of the Holy Spirit. 
The god of this world feels the shock of the onset, 
and has commenced his retreat ; and Jesus Christ is 
pressing onward from conquering to conquer ; nor 
will he turn from his purpose, or cease from his 
work, until he hath made all things new. 



^ 



